Democracy

Ticketmaster Hot and Bothered About ALEC

Association with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is becoming so toxic that even being listed on ALEC Exposed as a former supporter of the organization is rattling corporate cages. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has received a letter from the online ticket sales company Ticketmaster referring to the list of "ALEC Corporations" on our site Sourcewatch.org.

Ticketmaster's letter does not directly deny any current or former involvement with ALEC, but "advises" CMD to "cease and desist from including Ticketmaster on your site," objecting to "the suggestion that Ticketmaster is somehow affiliated with ALEC" and threatening to sue CMD for libel and defamation.

Mars and Arizona Public Service Dump ALEC

The seventh and eighth corporations to publicly state that they cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are candy-maker Mars and the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), Arizona's largest electric utility. Mars had been an exhibitor at ALEC's 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans. Mars is the maker of Skittles, the snack Trayvon Martin had purchased before he was shot by George Zimmerman, whose arrest was delayed due to an NRA-backed gun law that became an ALEC "model" bill.

A Police Officer Speaks on ALEC and "Stand Your Ground"

-- by Brian Austin, originally posted on Badger Blue, Times Two.

"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."

-- William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Brian AustinQuestion of the day: What interest would a corporate lobbyist group have in expanding the rights of citizens to shoot and kill each other?

A great deal has been written about the shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison over the past several weeks. I don't need to rehash that conversation, as there is little I can offer regarding specific facts of those cases. What I would like to do instead is examine why these Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws have been promoted with such enthusiasm by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

I have written about ALEC in several prior posts, including Enemy at the Gates and Contempt, thy name is Fitzgerald. In short, ALEC is a corporate lobbyist group that writes model legislation favorable to its corporate members and presents this legislation for passage in statehouses across the nation. The conduit for this legislation are the legislators who are also members of ALEC. This partnership between corporate lobbyists and politicians has been very fruitful for the corporations hawking their legislation. This is fact, not conspiracy theory, as evidenced when ALEC legislation was recently introduced in Florida still bearing the ALEC mission statement.

Bloomberg Denounces NRA/ALEC "Shoot First" Laws

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference Wednesday in Washington, DC to denounce the "Shoot First" law conceived by the National Rifle Association and promoted through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The law, pushed by its supporters under the name "Stand Your Ground," had been cited in Florida to potentially allow Trayvon Martin's killer to escape liability.

CMD Documents ALEC’s Contradictory Claims to Wisconsin Ethics Board

On April 11, the Center for Media and Democracy filed a letter with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board documenting how the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, provided the ethics board erroneous information about corporate-funded gifts to ALEC legislative members. This letter supplements the complaint CMD filed last month.

A Silver Bullet That Would End Secret Tax-Exempt Money In Elections

A guest post by Greg Colvin, a partner at the firm Adler & Colvin, originally published at OurFuture.org.

No doubt about it, large unlimited donations are flowing into SuperPACs from rich individuals and corporations aimed at influencing who is elected at all levels of government in 2012. With the SuperPACs and other forms of political committees regulated by the federal and state election agencies, or by the IRS under section 527, at least we know who the donors are.

McDonald's is Fifth Corporation to Drop ALEC Membership in a Week

Hours after the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and other progressive groups publicly called on McDonald's to drop its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the fast food giant announced it has left the organization. McDonald's is the fifth major corporation in a week to withdraw from ALEC, and groups are now calling for legislators to follow suit.

The “99% Spring” Aims to Train 100,000 Activists

More than 60 progressive groups are uniting behind the effort known as "99% Spring" and are planning to train 100,000 people across the country in methods of non-violent direct action.

During the week of April 9 – 15th, leaders from the groups will converge to train young activists to tell the story of what happened to the national economy, learn the history of non-violent direct action, and use that knowledge to take action on campaigns to win change. Lead organizing groups include the United Auto Workers, AFL-CIO, National Peoples Action, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Rebuild the Dream, Moveon.org, and UNITE, the hospitality industry union. Following in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ghandi, the effort hopes to give young activists the tools to organize actions and follow in the footsteps of the Wisconsin Uprising and the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  In some areas the trainings are supported by OWS, in other areas they are not.

Not Just the NRA: Former ALEC Leader, the Head of Gun Owners of America, Sides With Shooter of Trayvon Martin

The executive director of Gun Owners of America Larry Pratt has hit the airwaves with a rare defense of George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old man who shot and killed unarmed African-American high school student Trayvon Martin. Prosecutors and law enforcement in Florida have cited Florida's "stand your ground" (aka "shoot first") law, which was conceived by the National Rifle Association and ratified by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Pratt is a former ALEC board member and notorious for racially-charged rhetoric.

SubGate: A Tasty New Scandal Rocks Wisconsin

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan giving out sandwichesMitt Romney won the Wisconsin Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but not before word of the "SubGate" scandal rocketed around the state. Romney spent much of the week campaigning with Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, but in a "get out the vote" effort on Primary Day, Romney and Ryan were videotaped handing out free sandwiches to voters at a Cousins Subs shop in an apparent violation of Wisconsin law.

At the campaign stop Romney said: "I want to thank you for voting. Get your friends to go vote, get your friends to go with you, that's how you can legally vote multiple times. So bring your friends to the polling place, get out and vote, and if you want another sandwich, there are more back there."

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